Misery
by Morgan Dougherty
Summary: "It would be his penitence, the retribution he was owed by virtue of his crimes... His vows would prove harder to keep than he thought." A look at what brought Eli to Degrassi, and the effects it had on him.


Eli had come to Degrassi with the full intention of making himself fully and thoroughly miserable. It had been his mother's idea, really, his relocation. She had been worried, he could tell, and his forced smiles, the genial small talk, the thorough obedience, had not fooled her. It was another thing on the list of crimes for which would never redeem himself. He had killed his girlfriend, the person who was closest him in the whole world, and now he was slowly killing his mother, the only one who could forgive him.

And so, when she had sat down at the breakfast table, gripping a cup of tea for strength, with a look on her face that screamed anguish, Eli had consented to do whatever she asked of him before she even opened her mouth. Anything, anything in the world, to stop his mother looking like that. Like Julia's mother did, every time he saw her in the school parking lot retrieving Jessie, her youngest, or in the supermarket, or down the street. Like some tiny, invisible being had sucked the soul right out of her and left the empty shell of a person to wander, zombie-like, through the day-to-day. Lifeless. And though Eli didn't know it, it was this haunted look that painted his face too. It was this that brought agony to his mother's eyes, watching her son torment himself.

"I think you should spend some time with your father."

Eli looked at his hands.

As a child, being sent to his father was always a bad thing. Not that Mr. Goldsworthy had ever done anything to deserve being painted as the bad guy, really. He'd always been pleasant enough, present enough. It had always been Leah Goldsworthy, with a firm look in her eye, who had scolded and punished him, forbidden him from playing with the rough big boys from one street over, made him attend the birthday party of the little girl across the street despite how much he despised her not-so-secret crush on him. But it had also been his mother who had baked cookies for him while he played in the mud and never once complained about the mess he made as trudged through the kitchen, triumphantly declaring he was going to make worm pie.

So when their divorce had become final in the midst of Eli's childhood, he hardly remembered being told he could visit whenever he wanted, and that he would have to be good for his mother, and be the man of the house. It wasn't until Eli had desired to learn to fight, tired of being chased by the behemoth of a school bully, that it had even registered as inconvenient that he now had to be driven across town to speak with his father.

It seemed strange, however, being sent there now, when the last ordered visit had been shortly after he started dating Julia, and Leah wanted to be sure someone had a 'birds and the bees' talk with her teenage son.

"Okay."

"I don't mean for a visit, sweetie," his mother countered, her voice trembling, "I think you should stay for a while, maybe start fresh..."

And though he knew she didn't intend it as a punishment, a part of Eli, a small child inside of him, wanting to cry at being sent away, and beg to stay, beg her not to separate them for the first time. Instead, he took a deep breath, and nodded, and asked when.

"A few weeks, maybe... before school starts."

Eli saw her plan then, and nodded a little more solemnly this time.

"Where-?"

"Degrassi Community School. It's big," she said slowly, "busy. The kind of place you could be invisible if you wanted."

He understood.

It wasn't a whole new city, really. His father had moved further downtown when Eli was twelve – when he had stopped visiting, because nobody thought to make him anymore. But his father's lavish brownstone seemed so different from their Mississauga townhouse. And the streets were new and unfamiliar until Eli had driven them all several times, stubbornly refusing to use the GPS his father had slipped into Morty's glove compartment.

Morty. The one relic of death he had been permitted to keep. Leah had commanded him to leave of all _her_ things behind, packed away with the promise his mother would keep it safe, would not destroy it, so long as he left it – left _her_ – out of his new life. But Julia had never even looked at Morty, a more recent acquisition, and thus he could keep it, even if it was a reminder of his guilt. Of what he had done.

The same logic had been applied to his new wardrobe, until there was almost no colour in his suitcase at all. But after months of trying every coaching and coaxing tactic in her repertoire to get him to move on, to get up off the couch, to talk to his old friends, to do _something_, Momma Goldsworthy had given up. She just wanted a fresh start, let him dictate the terms.

Then, in a moment of weakness he had let it all slip.

"You'll let me come back?"

A hug, the tightest Eli had ever experienced, enveloped him.

"If you get good grades, and stay out of trouble...and...and get better, then we can talk about it."

Another silent nod – the last – and Eli drove away from the only home he'd ever known.

* * *

She had only asked him to start fresh, she had not dictated the terms. In the many hours of packing, Eli had done that for himself. He would start fresh, he would tell no one, but that didn't stop him creating his own conditions. It would be his penitence, the retribution he was owed by virtue of his crime.

The new death-heavy wardrobe would keep away any new friends – girls too. Eli had been considered a cutie at his old school, but he knew all the black washed him out, and that his too-long hair often looked greasier than shiny, and that the black around his eyes wasn't always flattering. He would be cold and scary and distant, and no one would want anything to do with him.

He would do well in school, but keep to himself. Even as the scary new kid, he would be invisible. He would get no joy in this relocation, just invisibility, worthlessness. No one would approach him in the hallways with sympathetic looks in their eyes, or walk in the other direction when they saw him coming. No one would pity him, and no one would blame him. He would be invisible. School would be purgatory, and Eli didn't quite blame himself enough to make it hell. He didn't deserve to be happy, he knew that deeply, but he had stopped thinking he deserved hell a while ago.

* * *

His vows would prove harder to keep than he thought. The first few days had gone flawlessly, of course. The hearse had earned him a few strange looks, but in a big-city school, kids had seen the emo-goth-death thing before. Even the make-up, which would have – correction,_ had_ – been social suicide at his old school, was overlooked. Perfect, Eli thought, invisibility.

Then he had heard the crunch in the school parking lot. He had been keeping his eyes firmly on the road ahead – he was not allowed to look at his classmates, gawping at pretty girls had the potential to bring too much joy. So he had not noticed the duo arguing on the sidewalk, not until whatever it was they were fighting over went flying out of their hands and under his car tire.

Eli hit the brakes immediately. He barely glanced at the pair as he dove under the car to retrieve the item, content to make this interaction as brief as possible. Then, he noticed that he had crushed a pair of glasses, a little old-fashioned and nearly coke-bottle thick. Why would a couple of girls be fighting over a pair of glasses? Eli turned to the closest one, who looked somewhat in a state of shock.

"I think they're dead." He kept his tone polite, his voice soft. The pair were so small he wondered fleetingly if they were niners, and if his new look scared the little curly-haired brunette.

She took them with a hesitanting hand, the fingers brushing his incredibly soft.

"I-it's alright." She stammered nervously, waving the broken spectacles as she spoke. "I-I-I don't need them. Got...laser surgery."

She took a breath and looked up hesitantly; treating Eli to the brightest baby blues he'd ever seen before.

He leaned down a little to get a better look. She had to be a freshman, she was too nervous not to be, either that or he was much scarier than he thought.

"You have pretty eyes." He said softly. It was true, of course, but that wasn't why he said it. This girl reminded Eli of a character he'd once read about in a play. She looked like she needed to be told her eyes were pretty, and for some reason, Eli wanted to be the one to do it.

The girl blushed, but rather than making her descend into a fit of helpless giggles, as most girls did, her hands seemed to cease trembling, and she met his gaze a little more boldly. And because Eli did not feel an interaction could have gone any better than that, he moved to get back into the hearse.

"I'll, uh, see you around?" the girl asked, still a little pink-cheeked, but bolder now with his compliment in her ears.

And because the pink blush in her cheeks and the reddish-brown of her hair set off her eyes even better when viewed as a whole, and because she was small and delicate, and bold in her nervousness in the way only innocents could be, Eli could not stop himself from replying.

"Guess you will."

* * *

Though the interaction had been pleasant, Eli was not technically in violation of any of his self-imposed punitive conditions... yet.

But the temptation came. In baby steps, so he couldn't anticipate, couldn't stop it. A pairing for English class – that was school, his mother wanted him to do well, and he knew Blue Eyes was the kind of person who would take it personally if he refused to work with her, rather than attributing it to his being an ass. So he skipped with her, made her loosen up for the sake of her paper. She had needed his help – needed him.

And when he'd met that lanky kid during the "Hands on Hard Body" contest, well, he couldn't help but feel a little sorry. Clearly the kid was trying way too hard to be cool, and when Eli saw him sitting alone at lunch, he reminded himself that peasants on pilgrimage often made it a point to commit good deeds to atone for prior wrongs. And so he had given Adam a friend.

* * *

Arriving home after wrapping shooting on their Romeo and Juliet project, Eli was all but whistling as he slung his backpack against the stairs and made for the kitchen. Eli's outstretch palm was nearly wrapped around the nearest apple when he saw her sitting there.

"Mom?"

She was just checking in, she said, just to see how he was doing. They chatted at length. Eli told her about guys' nights with Adam, and going to the concert with Sav, and helping Clare with her English assignment. And as he sat there talking, he silently congratulated himself for the smile on his mother's face, for the pain gone from her eyes. He had promised to do better and he had.

It was as she was leaving, grinning from ear to ear in a toothy smile that matched her son's, that she tossed the comment so innocently over her shoulder.

"Maybe next time we can talk about when you can come home."

Eli's smile faltered. Home. That's right, this was supposed to be a temporary arrangement. The opposite of a grounding for formerly problematic behaviour. He was supposed to be here on penitence, to pay for his crimes – his murder. Instead, he realized that he didn't want to leave. He liked his new life. He still missed his mother and their family of two dynamic, but he enjoyed spending time with Adam in a way he hadn't with his old friends in quite some time, and he didn't like the idea of not being able to kiss Clare again, and – and –

He was happy.

Eli wanted to kick himself.

He had come here to be exiled, to be punished, and instead he was kindling the sparks of friendship into the possibility of more with a girl too sweet to ever suspect what he'd done, and striking up friendships with a boy whose social knowledge actually managed to rank below Eli's and who needed the older boy to guide him along.

Eli was needed here, and, despite all of his best intentions and the efforts he'd made to make himself thoroughly miserable – he was enjoying it.

**AN: Just a quick little one-shot with a different perspective on Eli's arrival at Degrassi. I know a lot of people have done this p.o.v. with a much darker outlook, but it seems too much of an about-face to Eli's later behaviour. Even if we have yet to see him smile without Clare. I just think his face in Ms. Dawes' class when she announces their pairing looks more like a sullen pout than angsty brooding. And he cracks jokes, plots revenge and throws himself into new adventures too quickly to really be hung up over it. So as much as he wasn't ready to let Julia go, I doubt he was still grieving the loss. Just feeling the after-effects. Constructive criticism and further commentary on the matter is appreciated.**


End file.
